Jack Lark: Rogue
Authors: Paul Fraser Collard
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Historical Fiction
Copyright © 2014 Paul Fraser Collard
The right of Paul Fraser Collard to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2014
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978 1 4722 2276 3
Cover image © STILLFX/Shutterstock.com
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
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About Paul Fraser Collard
Author photograph © Martin Collard
Paul’s love of military history started at an early age. A childhood spent watching films like
Waterloo
and
Zulu
whilst reading Sharpe, Flashman and the occasional Commando comic, gave him a desire to know more of the men who fought in the great wars of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. At school, Paul was determined to become an officer in the British army and he succeeded in winning an Army Scholarship. However, Paul chose to give up his boyhood ambition and instead went into the finance industry. Paul stills works in the City, and lives with his wife and three children in Kent.
As pot boy at his mother’s infamous London gin palace, Jack Lark is no stranger to trouble.
Between dog fights and street scuffles, if he’s not being set upon, he’s starting a brawl himself. But when an unlikely ally draws him from the dark alleys of the East End into the bright lights of a masked ball, he gets a glimpse of another life. That life, once seen, is impossible to forget.
Jack will do anything to outwit, outsmart and escape the cruelty in his own home. He is determined to get out, but what price will he be forced to pay for his freedom?
By Paul Fraser Collard and available from Headline
The Scarlet Thief
The Maharajah’s General
The Devil’s Assassin
Praise for Paul Fraser Collard:
‘This is a fresh take on what could become a hackneyed subject, but in Fraser Collard’s hands is anything but’
Good Book Guide
‘Savage, courageous, and clever’
Goodreads
‘This is what good historical fiction should do – take the dry dusty facts from history books and tell the story of the men and women who lived through them – and Collard does this admirably’
www.
Ourbookreviewsonline.blogspot.co.uk
‘This is the first book in years I have enjoyed that much that I had to go back and read it again immediately’
www.
parmenionbooks.wordpress.com
‘Collard is to be congratulated for producing a confident, rich and exciting novel that gave me all the ingredients I would want for a historical adventure of the highest order’
www.
forwinternights.wordpress.com
The boy moved quickly. He kept his master in sight but held back, hiding away in the dense yellow fog that smothered the city like a dank, dun-coloured veil. That evening’s particular was thick and the smog dulled the sounds of his footsteps but still the boy was wary. He was too familiar with the heavy wooden cudgel at his master’s hip to treat it with anything other than respect. Despite his bulk, his master was fast, and the thick shaft of oak waited just inches from his right hand. It could be drawn in a single heartbeat, and woe betide any man or woman in reach if it were wielded in anger.
‘Evening, Mr Lampkin.’
The boy heard the respect in the muttered greeting. He hid in the opening to the alley that led behind the row of rancid houses close to his destination, biding his time. He kept his eyes on his master, waiting patiently for him to move on.
The greeting was met with silence as the boy’s master paused, his head turning in the direction of the lad charged with guarding the entrance that led to the cellar of the Ten Bells.
‘No charge for you, Mr Lampkin.’ The door-keep shuffled from foot to foot, his fear bright even in the murk.
The only answer came in the form of a thick wad of phlegm spat to the ground. The boy’s master shuffled past without another word and disappeared down the dark staircase.
The boy moved quickly, slipping out of the alley and trotting into the light cast by the single gas lamp near the back entrance to the public house that was hosting that night’s entertainment.
‘All right, Mud.’
‘Evening, Sam.’ The boy moved closer now that his master had begun to descend the stairs, his bearing more confident as he stepped out of the man’s shadow.
‘I’m supposed to charge you a shilling if you want to come in.’ Sam sniffed, his hand lifting to wipe away the trail of snot that hovered over his upper lip.
‘I ain’t got a shilling.’ The boy known as Mud gave the lie easily. The coins were heavy in his pocket but he needed them for the betting. He would not waste any on Sam Taylor.
‘You’ve always got money, Mud. Give us a penny and I’ll let you in.’
‘I ain’t got a penny.’ Mud stepped closer. He was tall, his body lean and hard. There was no hiding the muscles in his arms, the legacy of a life shifting barrels heavy with gin. ‘My ma told me to come to keep an eye on her old man. I ain’t here for nothing else. You want me to tell her you wouldn’t let me follow him down?’
‘I reckon I can let you in then.’ Sam sniffed, then gurgled as the contents of his nose caught in the back of his throat. ‘If you ain’t here for the betting.’
The boy needed no more permission. He followed the man who shared his mother’s bed into the gloom.
The cellar was dim, the scattered oil lamps fighting an unequal struggle against the darkness. It stank, the cloying stench of dog shit overlaid with the rancid odour of too many bodies pressed into too small a space. The low murmur of voices betrayed the building excitement in the room, the expectation of violence simmering just beneath the surface.
The boy followed his master’s bulk. There was little room in the cellar, but the men packed into the dank and fetid space still found an inch or a foot to ease out of the way of the big man. Faces lifted to glance his way, then turned away quickly, like hounds finding themselves facing a wolf.
‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ A loud voice cut through the hubbub of men talking in low tones. A tall figure in a fabulous long coat rose above the heads of the crowd as he ascended a pulpit fabricated from wooden crates. He lifted his hands, motioning the room to silence. Like any good audience, those gathered in the cellar hushed and turned to face the man who would run the evening’s entertainment.
The boy slipped through the crowd, keeping his distance from his master now that he had made it inside. He wormed through the press of bodies, working his way closer to the low wooden fence that had been constructed to form a circle six feet in diameter in the centre of the cellar. The punters thronged round its edge, their status defined by how close they could get to the very front. Chancing his luck, the boy edged nearer to where the fight would take place, desperate to be able to see. He kept his eyes riveted on his master, always wary and ready to duck away out of sight if the man turned.
‘Gentlemen, welcome.’ The man in the long coat preened as he felt the crowd’s eyes rest upon him. He looked round the room, nodding in greeting at the important men nearest the pit.
The boy pulled his cap down, trying to hide his face. The man in the long coat would know him; he was a regular at his mother’s ginny, and the boy knew he would be rewarded with a thick ear or worse if he were discovered. Yet the lure of the evening had drawn him in. It was worth the risk. If his luck held, then he could double his stash of rhino. And he needed the money.
The man standing high above the crowd took a firm hold of the lapels of his coat. It was made from dozens of bright squares of material, a gaudy patchwork of colours that gave rise to his nickname. Harlequin Billy was famous in the streets of Whitechapel, his fights known to be the best: the dogs would bite hard and the money would be good.
‘Time for the first bout.’ Harlequin Billy did not bother with any more preamble. He knew what his punters wanted. ‘Up first, Tom Pullen’s bitch against Harry Smith’s brawler.’
The boy pressed forward, the men around him erupting as the first fight was called. The owners of the two dogs stepped purposefully into the ring, their animals held tight under their arms, muzzles bound with leather straps. The crowd was shouting now, the wagers flying around the dark cellar as men gambled their money on which dog would win.
‘Six shillings on the bitch.’ The boy turned away from the ring and raised the coins high. He was risking a fortune.
‘You shouldn’t be here, young Mud. Does your mother know you is out?’ A servant dressed in the livery of one of the finer London houses clapped him on the shoulder.